


Through Fire and Flames

by phoenixloverful



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Firefighters, EMT Castiel, Firefighter Dean, M/M, Student Sam, tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3325448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixloverful/pseuds/phoenixloverful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester was twenty-five, and he was happy with his life. Or at least he thought he was, up until the day Cassie Robinson pranced back into his life with a 5 carat diamond ring on her finger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Fire and Flames

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first multi chapter fic and I'm hoping that I'll stick to it and won't slack off like I always do. Comments, kudos, bookmarks, really anything is appreciated. Non beta'd, all mistakes my own. If you wanna talk to me I'll be over at [theweinersoldier](http://thewienersoldier.tumblr.com/)

Cassie Robinson had arguably been Dean’s first love. They’d dated throughout their senior year, and though they were so different, Dean thought she was endgame for him. But such is the way of childhood infatuation, and Dean’s fantasy came crashing down around him just two weeks before graduation.

They had been talking about future plans. The summer was sketchy as far as definite plans went, but they wanted to have something hammered out for the fall college semester. That was the time Cassie dropped a nuclear bomb over Dean’s head. 

“Dean,” she stated quietly, “I think I want to move to New York.”

Dean was dumbstruck. He couldn’t go to New York, and he told her such. 

“Cassie, I can’t leave Sammy behind,” he pleaded. Cassie knew what he was talking about. She had been the one to clean him up on the nights Dean took the blows of his drunken father, if only to spare Sam the pain and lingering stares in the school hallways. Cassie understood what he meant when he said he couldn’t leave. But Dean could see the fire in her eyes, the wanderlust in her soul to do what she loved, so he did the best thing for them both. Later on that night, after he faced down his dad from the upteenth time, while blood dripped steadily from his nose, Dean texted to the love of his life that he wanted to end things before they got to the point where they couldn’t even be friends. Cassie wholeheartedly agreed, but they didn’t see each other except in passing because it was just too raw.

Dean went to the local community college for a year before he felt severely unsatisfied with his life. He didn’t think of Cassie much then, and when he did, he was usually drunk in his own tiny apartment. But from what he had last heard, Cassie was a freelance writer in, whatdoyaknowit, New York, and she was making quite the name for herself. Dean knew he couldn’t compete with the glory of her career, so more often than not Dean ended up passed out with an empty bottle of Jack. 

Dean was twenty when he first learned about the Fire Fighter Academy. Of course, he knew all about firemen and had lived in awe of them since he was four years old and a fire killed his mother and burnt down his childhood home. But as far as joining him, self doubt prevented that from happening up until then. At twenty, with Sammy staying on his couch more nights than not, Dean enrolled in classes at the Lawrence Fire Academy. 

Six months of training went by, and it was time for Dean to take his tests. He was most worried about the multiple choice test; the aptitude test and the CPAT (Candidate Physical Ability Test) he could handle, but he thought of himself as more brawn than brains. But as it was, he passed all of the tests with flying colors and soon was putting out fires and saving poor kittens from trees (true story). 

Everything went well for a few years. Dean was content with his life. He made do with faux intimacy in the form of one night stands, he made close friends in the house. There was a sense of community between the firefighters that made him feel needed and irreplaceable. 

Out of the blue, after seven years of near radio silence, Cassie called Dean. Dean picked up the phone to hear heavy panting, and at first he was just going to hang up, but then he heard her voice.

“Dean? Hello? Are you there?’

“Cassie?” He whispered into the speaker. 

“Yeah, it’s me! I have some huge news! I’m moving back to Lawrence!” She squealed. Dean’s heart hammered in his chest. Even after so much time had passed, Cassie was the only one who could elicit such a response from him.

“You’re coming back? That’s amazing!” He laughed.

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a week or so to move my stuff in. We should do something together.”

“There’s a coffee shop that opened two years ago that has a kick ass house brew. We could meet there at twelve if that’s cool with you.”

“It’s a date! Alright, I gotta go.” The line went dead and Dean stood in the middle of his apartment with is mouth hanging open. Cassie Robinson was coming home. He would see her in a week. One week till he got to see her dark complexion with her straight, white teeth, and thick, curly black hair that always got knotted when Dean ran his fingers through it. 

Dean shook his head to bring himself out of his trance and went back to sorting through his laundry to find his fire department shirt. He was on call for the remainder of the week; not that he minded. In a smaller town, the fire department mainly responded to EMT calls and minor emergencies. 

Dean drove to the firehouse in high spirits. Not only was he going to see Cassie in a week, but it was chilly night and his favorite EMT/house chef was cooking. Outside the firehouse, Victor and Garth played two on two with Ash and Andy. They all shouted a greeting to Dean as he walked in before Victor stole the ball and shot an easy three pointer. 

Dean hung his jacket up in the little closet room right off the front hallway and walked into the dining hall. Everyone was already sitting around, poking fun at each other while they ate they’re strawberry creme crepes. Dean stood around high fiving and talking to his other crew members before his stomach growled. Gordon, his least favorite team member, patted his stomach. 

“Sound’s like it’s time for the big guy to get something to eat!” He laughed. Dean nodded at the man and made his way into the kitchen. 

Stood over the stove with a red and white striped apron tied around his waist, was Castiel Novak, Lawrence fire station’s resident chef. 

“Hiya, Cas,” Dean greeted loudly. Cas jumped nearly a foot in the air as he whipped around with his spatula raised. Cas calmed down when see it was only Dean.

“Oh, hello, Dean. You startled me, I did not hear you come in.” Cas turned back around and scraped the now burnt crepe off the pan. 

Dean chuckled. “Consider it payback for all the times you’ve scared me. Seriously, man, I’m not convinced you weren’t a ninja in a past life.”

“Ah, yes, my past life was solely based around scaring you,” Cas said wryly. Dean laughed again and stole a strawberry from Cas’ quart. The other man turned his scalding blue gaze on him. Dean raised his arms to indicate he wouldn’t do it again. 

Dean enjoyed messing with Cas. It was just so easy to get under his skin. But he couldn’t enjoy it too much; Cas’s brother, Michael, was the fire chief, and it did not bode well to upset Cas if what happened to Balthazar was any warning (not that anyone knew what Balthazar did to get fired). But him and Cas had been on many runs together throughout the few short years they’d been in the house. Cas was always ready with a gurney just outside the door when Dean was rescuing people, and Dean was usually pretty good at getting people out of smoky houses in time to prevent too much smoke inhalation (if the circumstances were right, of course). Bottom line was, they worked well together and Dean like to think of them as friends. 

Sometimes, though, when the firehouse had holiday dinners and everyone who wasn’t on call dressed up nice, Dean would think he’d want to be more than friends with Castiel. It was no secret in the firehouse that there were some people of different sexual orientations amongst them, and at first it had caused a tiff between Gordon and Dean, but everybody became comfortable with the fact that Dean was bisexual. It wasn’t like Dean hit on the other fighters.

EMTs, however, weren’t off limits to Dean. And when Cas was in those tight, black dress pants, Dean thanked whoever was listening that he could hook up with some at the bar, otherwise he would die of blue balls just staring at Cas’ tight, round ass in the pants.

Either way, Dean never made a move and Cas was none the wiser. Dean stuck to his usual teasing, Cas to his usual scowling, and the day went as all the others do. 

++++

Dean Winchester was twenty-five, and he was happy with his life. Or at least he thought he was, up until the day Cassie Robinson pranced back into his life with a 5 carat diamond ring on her finger.  
Dean sat in the coffee house the day that they had scheduled, sipping a black house brew and waiting on Cassie. His heart hammered in his chest and his stomach in knots. Halfway to the coffee shop, Dean had to pull the Impala over to make sure he wasn’t having a panic attack. 

The bell above the door twinkled, and Dean looked up. His breath caught in his throat, he would’ve sworn his heart literally stopped. Cassie entered the shop amidst jet black hair and shopping bags swinging wildly from her arms. She looked the same, but oh, so, different. 

She spotted him seconds after he saw her and waved energetically, rushing to his spot. Dean scrambled from his chair to hug the woman, enveloping her in a huge, sweeping hug. Cassie laughed as he set her down. 

“Dean Winchester, oh my god!” She exclaimed, pushing herself into a chair. 

“I could say the same about you, Cassie. God damn, it’s good to see ya.” Dean couldn’t help but smile at her. She was still Cassie. Same voice, same eyes, and he knew, same soul that had drawn him in in the first place. 

“So, little ole’ Lawrence hasn’t changed a bit, I see. Except for this place. ‘Heavenly Delicacies’? Do they live up to their name?” Cassie’s eyebrows shot up.

Dean, for his part, nodded vigorously. “Oh hell yeah. Best apple pie in the tri-county area. And on Sunday nights they have these specials called Devilish Delights where they spike the drinks with alcohol and, man, Cassie, you gotta check it out.” 

Cassie laughed at his enthusiasm, then got up from the chair. “I’ll be back, gonna grab a cup of coffee. You need anything?” Dean shook his head no. 

+++

After Cassie returned, the catching up process began. 

“So, Dean, what do you do nowadays?”

And so Dean filled Cassie in on everything; on how after they graduated Dean took all the money he had in savings to get his own apartment and all the nights Sam stayed with Dean instead of at their father’s house. On how he tried community college, he really did, but academics had always been Sam’s thing and, once he found the Academy, he felt whole and accepted, and found something he truly loved to do. Cassie listened with a quiet reverence that Dean didn’t know he missed.

But then it was Cassie’s turn. 

 

“Well, after graduation, I went straight to New York. Seriously pissed off my parents, but I thought it was something I had to do. It was...something I’m good at. And if I’d stayed here, I’d have never been happy. So I went. And...honestly, I couldn’t be happier that I did. The people there, they’ll give you one hell of a wake up call. It’s more than being a good writer; in New York, no one’s special. It’s all a matter of who works the hardest who knows who in the business. And I’ll be honest, I think I just got lucky that someone wanted me to write for them. Then, after some people really acknowledged my writing, more people wanted me, and I just began contributing to a lot of newspapers and magazines.” Cassie let out a long breath. “And, Dean, New York is…breathtaking. You’d love it there.”

Dean felt like someone had shoved a dull, rusty knife in his heart. He cleared his throat. “So, uh, why’d you come back?”

“Well, Dean, that’s actually want I wanted to-,” Cassie was cut off by the twinkle of the bell again, and she looked up at the source of the sound. When she saw the short man standing there, she jumped up and threw her arms around him. Dean didn’t realise what was happening until Cassie caught the man by the face and kissed him soundly. Now Dean really did feel sick. In fact, his vision was swimming and he couldn’t focus on one singular thing. 

Cassie dragged the man over to their table. “Dean Winchester, I’d like you to meet my fiance, Andy Gallagher.”


End file.
